1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink print device including at least one ink jet print head, disposed movable back and forth along a platen, and exhibiting a recording substrate and a cleaning and sealing station in a work region.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
Ink jet printing devices are of increasing interest for the user based on the development of ever more powerful and increasingly higher capability microprocessors in addition to a plurality of other print devices such as, for example, pin printers, matrix printers, thermal transfer printers, thermal printers, thermographic printers and electrophotographic printers. The purchase of a printer is frequently a complex decision, where the production features such as speed, economy and print quality are in the foreground based on the increased capability of the peripheral text processing apparatus. The production feature, namely to be able to print in color, is furthermore of marked importance for various fields of application. For this purpose, ink printing presents optimum preconditions and prerequisites based on the use of color writing liquids, which can be produced at a low cost and in a simple manner, in addition to the thermal transfer printing process.
The ink colors employed for providing color to the writing liquids are, for example, yellow, cyan, magenta, and black according to the German printed patent document DE-A1 37 36 916. The ink in the nozzle exit or nozzle ejection openings of an ink jet print head can dry up in case of longer printing intervals. In order to prevent this drying, the ink jet print device exhibits, for example, a cleaning and sealing station or, respectively, a suction regeneration device. Cleaning and sealing stations can also be employed to eliminate soiling at the nozzle exit openings of the ink jet print head in the ink jet print device. For this purpose, the ink jet print heads are cleaned at regular time intervals and are sealed in case of longer printing intervals of the ink jet printing device. In case of use of cleaning and sealing stations in color printers, it has to be guaranteed that there does not occur a mixing of colors during the cleaning and sealing of the ink jet print heads.
A cleaning and sealing station or, respectively, a suction regeneration device for ink jet print heads in ink jet print devices is known in each case from the German printed patent document DE-A1-33 16 474, German printed patent document DE-A1-33 16 968, German printed patent document DE-A1-36 04 373, German printed patent document DE-A1 36 11 333, German printed patent document DE-A1-36 33 239, German printed patent document DE-A1-37 26 671, German printed patent document DE-A1-38 10 698, and European printed patent document EP-A1-0,094,220. Nozzle exit openings of the ink jet print heads are cleaned, flushed and the nozzle exit openings are sealed in case of longer printing intervals of the ink jet print devices in different ways with the cleaning and sealing station or, respectively, the suction regeneration device. The cleaning and sealing station or, respectively, suction regeneration device is disposed for this purpose preferably in a parking position outside the operating and working region of a printer carriage, supporting the ink jet print heads and disposed in the ink jet print device. The construction space, additionally required based on this arrangement, in the ink printer effects that, depending on the outer dimensioning of the cleaning and sealing station or, respectively, suction regeneration device, the ink jet print device becomes wider and thus more cumbersome to handle.